Adnane Scissorhands

I am not a person who is picky about her hair. I've had it short, long, a mullet, straight, every shade of brown, curly, red, black, highlighted, 80's mall hair and I've completely shaved it off and had no hair. I only ask that it be healthy and not feel like straw. And right now it does after I colored it a light brown and then it got bleached out this summer from the sun, so that it's now a horrible brash blondish color. So the time has come for that bianual haircut, so that it can once again feel healthy and so I can completely neglect it and put it up in a wet flipped through pony tail for the next 6 months until it's time to do it again. And why don't I just shave my head again?

I'm not great at making appointments ahead of time because I just need my hair cut the instant I get fed up with it. So although I got a great recommendation for a guy that almost everyone at the Embassy uses I lost his phone number and since I don't know where his place is I can't just show up and chance that he'll have an opening. Anyway, it's never been a big deal for me to go to someone new anyway. I've gone to barbershops, in my younger years I would go to someone and just say do whatever you want with it, I've gone to places where we don't speak the same language before and of course I've cut my own hair too. You get the drift. I don't know if it's just because I don't have great hair to begin with or the fact that I'm really apathetic and untalented at the whole hair thing. I'm sure it's both.

So I find a salon and Adnane is available to cut my hair. Great. Quickly I notice he is one of two stylists working at the salon and they are both male. Ok. Cool. He unclips my hair to let it down and inspect it. "You want it short?" he says. "No, just the ends" and I show him about an inch using my fingers as the scissor demonstration of how much I would like off. He calls shampo girl and she girl whisks me away to the sinks. I know I'm in more of a salon than I'm comfortable with when they have a shampoo girl. In fact all the shampoo girls are girls. The stylists are guys. Interesting. Is that modern and progressive or is it archaic and oppressive? I haven't decided yet. Shampoo girl shampoos my hair twice and doesn't condition. Weird, especially since my hair is fine, dry and tangle prone but ok. She must know what she's doing.

She walks me to the chair, combs out my tangly squeaky clean hair and preps me. She does so much that I'm sure I've misunderstood and she's the one who's going to cut my hair not Adnane. Shampoo girl exits and Adnane returns. He has scissors and starts cutting. "You like this color?" he asks looking at it sneering. He wants to color it. "Not today" I say. This wasn't the answer he wanted. He asks me if I like Barrack Obama. And although my degree is in Political Science, I have made it a policy of not discussing politics with foreign men who have sharp scissors. So I give a vague answer. He equates Obama to JFK. I'm so not biting. Then he switches topics and proceeds to tell me how his friend works in Manhattan and charges $300 for a mens haircut. Is he telling me this so he comes off as the most pretentious jerk or is this just a mere coincidence? He has been cutting my hair for less than 5 minutes and he's done. I only know he's done because he yells abruptly for shampoo girl and walks away. Really? Did that just happen? Shampoo girl then dries and styles my hair like this is normal.

So what is this strange and unusual feeling that comes over me? In less than 5 minutes I have determined I don't like Adnane. And I like everybody. My vote has now been cast on archaic and oppressive at this point too. While my hair is fine. Not the best cut, not the worst. I just don't like to get my haircut from someone who is just plain mean and arrogant. I think about not tipping him at all. But, I just can't do it. So I handle it in the most passive-aggressive way possible. I tip ridiculously low, although when you calculate his minute to dirham ratio for the short duration he worked...he probably didn't do too bad. Damn it! Then I vow never to return. And then I bought a box of hair color that I hope he absolutely hates (as if he will ever see it, know or care). That was right after I took angry looking pictures of my new hair for the blog. See, I told you it was passive aggressive. In fact if you look passive aggressive in the DSM you will see these 3 very same pictures of me scowling staring back at you. Watch out...I've got a box of haircolor and I'm gonna use it. Tomorrow....or the next day....but I will. So there Adnane Scissorhands!

Recommended reading: Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) by the American Psychiatric Association